Comparing Yahoo & Google Market Share in Local

Comparing market share and market share trends between Google Maps and the various Yahoo local properties is complicated by the fact (pointed out by Steve Espinosa) that Yahoo spreads their local traffic across three sites: Yahoo Local, Yahoo Maps and Yahoo Yellow Pages,

To clarify I once again went back to the well and asked the ever patient, Heather Hopkins of HitHiwise, to compare Google Maps with all three of the Yahoo local properties. Hopefully this will satisfy Steve’s desire to characterize the issues fairly.

The outcome:

â€¢Yahoo is still down roughly 7% for the year

â€¢Google has increased their market share by almost 100% and has managed to pass Yahoo with their January 10 Pack upgrade.

If you add MSN Live Local share to Yahoo in the event of a merger they would have greater market share than Google Maps. But the momentum is certainly on Google’s side and with their increased display of local listings in the main search results, the need to go into Maps has been decreased.

Please consider leaving a comment as your input will help me (& everyone else) better understand and learn about local.

I would love to see the comparison between these Yahoo numbers, Google Maps and the leading yellow page providers in one chart. I would also like to see them compared to each other as opposed to the whole internet.

Dave,
To me the answer of your question is quite simple. A lot of listings that google displays in the 10 pack, when you click on the business name lead right to Google’s Local Listing rather than the business site because Google has many web references and is not quite sure which one is the company site so they just send you to the Local Listing which creates traffic for Google Maps plus the reviews link goes to the listing as well. So one can conclude more links that lead to Google Maps would lead to more Google Maps Traffic.